TeraSpell 97 for Emacs

TeraSpell is used to spell check a word, line, region or buffer within Emacs.

Manufacturer: Teragram Corporation

E-Mail: info@teragram.com

URL: http://www.teragram.com/

Price: $9.99 US

Reviewer: Daniel Lazenby

TeraSpell 97 for Emacs is a shareware version of the Teragram
Corporation's Teragram Spell 97 for Windows, Mac and Unix.
Naturally there are some differences between the shareware and the
full product. TeraSpell for Emacs provides the Emacs user with a
flexible multi-language tool for spell checking documents. As a
test, I decided to use TeraSpell 97 and Emacs to write this
review.

What Does It Do?

TeraSpell is used to spell check a word, line, region or
buffer within Emacs. The evaluation copy contained only an American
English spelling dictionary. Several other languages including
British English, French and Canadian French, Dutch, German, Italian
and Spanish were listed as possible language dictionaries. This
software also allows users to define multiple custom dictionaries
of their own.

The feature I like most is the phonetic spell checking.
Spelling is not one of my fortes. Often I will spell a word the
same way I pronounce it. Needless to say, my pronunciation of the
word is not always correct, and hence neither is my spelling.
TeraSpell did an excellent job of offering suggestions for my often
abused spellings.

How Do You Use It?

Using TeraSpell is as easy as opening the Emacs editor.
TeraSpell appears as the left-most item on the Emacs menu.
TeraSpell menu options include spell checking a region, buffer or
word and spell checking words on the fly. You may also alter
several default settings. Preferences that may be adjusted include
the default dictionary, the foreground and background color used to
highlight misspelled words, the underlining of misspelled words and
the placement of the suggested spelling's floating menu.

There are two ways to set individual preferences. One is to
start Emacs and make selections from the TeraSpell Menu. The menu
method lasts only for the duration of the Emacs session. The other
is to customize your ~/.emacs file which will cause TeraSpell to
start with your desired preferences. Changes to the ~/.emacs file
involve appending setq variable definitions to
the bottom of the ~/.emacs file.

I configured TeraSpell to display misspelled words in red
with a yellow background (see Figure 1). To correct a misspelled
word you place the mouse cursor over the word and click the right
mouse button. This right click action displays a pop-up menu with
some suggested spellings or alternate words (see Figure 2). I
noticed an odd cursor behavior when correcting misspelled words.
The cursor seems to act as an insertion point when it is within a
misspelled word. Instead of replacing the misspelled word, the new
word was inserted into the misspelled word.

Figure 1. Emacs Screen Shot

Figure 2. TeraSpell Pop-up Menu

How is it Installed?

TeraSpell came as a gzipped tar file. The tar file extraction
and installation of TeraSpell 97 went smoothly. The installation
program was courteous of my existing Emacs configuration
file.

Make sure you have TeraSpell 97 in the proper directory for
your site. TeraSpell 97 builds its directory structures relative to
where you extract the teraspell.tar file. On the evaluation copy, I
used tar's p option to maintain the program's
initial file permissions. The extracted directory structures are
used to hold configuration files produced during the installation
process.

Next I ran the
install_teraspell program to
complete TeraSpell 97's installation. I was then asked if I agreed
with the License and if I wanted the ~./emacs file of the
installing UID modified to use TeraSpell. The modification is a
line that starts TeraSpell. The startup line is appended to the
~/.emacs file and the original ~/.emacs file is saved with a
-tsbackup extension.

Both single- and multi-user setups are supported. Single-user
setup is considered to be the installing UID. Multi-user setup
involves activating UIDs other than the installing user (I know
this seems obvious). UIDs other than the installing UID will have
to run a program called ts_adduser
or manually modify their ~/.emacs files to load TeraSpell with
Emacs.

My installation only allowed the installing UID to use
TeraSpell. To make TeraSpell available to other users, I had to
modify TeraSpell's directory group owner and some group permissions
to accommodate my system configuration. I also had to change the
group permissions on the emacs_config.el file from 600 to 640, so
members of the users' group could run TeraSpell.

Product Requirements Documentation for the reviewed copy of
TeraSpell indicated it runs on Linux, HP-UX, IRIX, Sun4 and Sun5. I
did not see a minimum required version of Emacs in the
documentation. I did notice the installation process verifies that
an Emacs release 19.29.1 or newer is installed.

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